EARTHKEEPING
NEWS
A NEWSLETTER
OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY
Volume Fourteen, Number Three
May / June 2005
Michigan Methodists Boycott Bottled Water
In 2003 the Detroit and West Michigan United Methodist Conferences asked all members to boycott Ice Mountain water, its parent company and all other brands owned by the company.
In 2002 Nestlé Waters North America convinced the State of Michigan that harvesting water for a water bottling plant would not harm the environment. Nestlé received a permit to dig wells in the middle of the state to extract 500 gallons a minute, bottle it at a plant near Big Rapids, Michigan and sell it as Ice Mountain Spring Water. This water comes from Sanctuary Springs, a shallow aquifer that feeds the Dead Stream, and Osprey and Thompson Lakes, which flow into the Muskegon River and Lake Michigan.
Citizens of Mecosta County soon found their wells running dry and discovered that the lake levels had fallen. Their concern that extracting the water was harming wetlands, lakes, and streams in the area, led them to form the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation. Two couples filed suit against the Nestlé Corporation. It appeared to be an impossible situation with one attorney representing the couples and nine attorneys representing the corporation.
To everyone's surprise, in November 2003, after canoeing the river himself, Judge Lawrence Root handed down an order for Nestlé to stop extracting the spring water. The judge found that the pumping had caused the Dead Stream surface level to drop by approximately two inches, caused area wetlands to lose up to 75 percent of their open water, and caused the Osprey and Thompson lake levels to fall by up to six inches. In December 2003, Nestlé filed for an emergency stay of the November decision and it was granted, allowing Nestlé to continue pumping until an appeals process could be completed.
The Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation appealed the decision and the case will come to court June 14, 2005. The outcome is unknown. Meanwhile, United Methodists in Michigan urge all citizens to boycott Ice Mountain, Arrowhead, Calistoga, Poland Springs, Great Bear, Perrier, Vitell, Deer Park, Utopia, Oasis, Zephyrhills, and Ozarka bottled water.
Ada Kidd may be reached at kidds@tir.com
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